


herding cats

by aiineslin



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pre-Quest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiineslin/pseuds/aiineslin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bringing the company together and turning them into a Company was a quest in its own right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Balin&Dwalin

The first person he sought after the meeting with the too-tall Wizard in Bree was Balin. He would have reached Erud Luin in a matter of days but for a wrong turning taken down a particularly small and winding mountain road. When he arrived at Balin’s humble quarters, he was covered with the debris of hard travel and his eyes were dark and hollow from not sleeping at night.

 

Balin greeted him with a knuckleduster pulled oh-so-casually over his great fists, but a great smile broke over his craggy face when he saw who loomed in his doorway.

 

“Come, come,” he cried, holding his arms out. Thorin met him in a tight hug, and both of them bumped their foreheads together, and Thorin finally smiled – the first small turning up of lips in eleven days.  

 

Balin did not release his grip as he steered Thorin firmly to the table in the middle of the small living room, sitting the other down in one of the wooden chairs situated at opposite ends of the table. There was a small clay pot for collecting pipe-ash in the middle of the table, and grey ash overflowed from it. A half-smoked pipe lay forgotten beside it as Balin brought forward food from his larder, cajoling the other to take a bite, just take another bite.

 

“I can’t,” said Thorin, his mouth stuffed full with steamed fish when Balin set a bowl of broth and a platter of bread in front of him. “Balin, you are emptying your cupboards -”

 

“For my King, who is clearly hungry after hard travel.” replied Balin, and placed down a wooden spoon so firmly beside the soup that Thorin fell silent and instead focused on mopping up the thin broth with hard bread.

 

When Balin finally consented to sit down opposite Thorin (“A smoke, my King?” “Balin, I have my own pipeweed.” “I wager you haven’t tried Old Toby.” “I. Well. No.”) – twilight had extended on into evening, and the oil-lamps outside Balin’s windows were lit.

 

“I have met with a wizard,” Thorin finally said after a deep puff on his own battered pipe. Blue-grey eyes met Balin’s own black eyes. “Tharkun, some call him.” The dwarf glanced out of the window, down at the narrow street where lamplight guttered weakly.

 

Balin followed Thorin’s gaze. There was a broad-shouldered shadow, draped in fur and black coat, making its steady way down the street.

 

 _Boom,_ went a mailed fist on the door.

 

Balin stood up, strode over and opened the door – allowing yet another dwarf to straggle into the warmth of the house.

 

“Feckin’ thief, would have cut his hands off if’n I had the chance …”

 

“Dwalin, Dwalin. _Look_.”

 

Dwalin looked. And then the tattooed dwarf stumped over to Thorin, who had by then risen to his feet, and brought his forehead down in a soft thump on Thorin’s head.

 

“Thorin King, as I live and breathe,” the tattooed dwarf kicked off his boots to land in an untidy heap beside Thorin’s own boots by the door, unstrapped the axes he carried on his back and hung them neatly on the wall from hooks. He did not bother to strip the armour from his body, or remove his mail glove – instead, he positioned himself behind his brother, dark brows drawn together in a frown of a smile. “What good wind blows you our way here this night, eh?”

 

“He was telling me,” reproved Balin sternly. “Before you came lumbering in.”

 

“What you have to tell one brother can be told to the other,” shot back Dwalin. “Well, Thorin King?”

 

“Tharkun,” said Thorin. “Tharkun spoke with me eleven days ago.”

 

And he took out a map.

 

Balin moved fast, for a dwarf his age. He was out of his chair and screwing a monocle to his eye before Dwalin could react, bending low over the map to study the sharp black ink on yellowed paper. Calloused fingers fluttered over the markings, and when he looked up, there was awe in his eyes.

 

“Erebor,” said Balin.

 

Behind him, there was a hiss as Dwalin drew in a sharp breath.

 

“The birds are returning,” Thorin’s voice was low and quiet, strangely intimate in that little house of scrolls and guttering candlelight. “Smaug has not been seen in years. The birds are returning, and they are singing.”

 

Silence, long and still. Wax dripped from the candle.

 

“Balin and Dwalin, sons of Fundin and Durmina. Great warriors of stout body and keen minds, two who have stood strong by my side since we were but the smallest dwarrows, warriors who have stood by my side in the Battle of Azanulbizar, whose blades have cleaved paths through armies of orc to open a way for my sword.”

 

“I ask you, for yet another favour.”

 

“Thorin King,” rumbled Dwalin, finally breaking the glass-fragile quiet. “You need not ask. You never would have needed to _ask_ , Thorin King Under the Mountain. I’ll come. I’ll come of my own free will.”

 

Balin sat back in his chair, one hand propping up his chin, the other kneading loose a furrow in his brow, oil-black eyes crinkled in distress.

 

“Balin!” Dwalin’s roar blasted out into the street, and Thorin heard a yell of distress as someone was woken up all too suddenly. “Answer! Do not think, brother, not now, do not think!”

 

Thorin rose from his chair, and moved around it to bend down, to take the worrying hand away from Balin’s forehead and clasp it in his own.

 

“Balin Fundinson, I promise you and your brother each a portion of the gold to be found in Erebor. I promise the restoration of your former positions, I promise the Great Library to you, I promise the position of Head Guardsman to your brother - … I promise you all this and more, Balin Fundinson. I need you, and your brother. I need your wits, your cleverness, your sharp eyes to pick out my faults and honest tongue to tell me them.”

 

“My King,” muttered Balin. “Oh, my King. I do not need rewards, pleasant as they might be. I need only ... I need only - Oh, my King. Honest tongue? _Me?_ ” He patted the other’s cheeks gently. “Oh, my King, my King. I have my doubts! I have them, and they teem many and seething, and they sow dark thoughts in me, but my King, like what my esteemed brother said … You need not have _asked_ , my King. Dwalin speaks for both of us. We give our blades freely and of our own will, and my King, have you written a contract yet?”

 

From the sudden flicker in Thorin’s eyes and the red that flushed the dwarf’s sallow cheeks, Balin gathered that he had not thought that far.

 

The old dwarf laughed tiredly.

 

“I will write your contract, my King.” He withdrew his hand from Thorin’s loose grip. “Rest for this night under our roof, we can only give you so much … But we give all, my King. We give all. We are at your service, my King. Always, and forever.”

 

Thorin looked at the old bearded dwarf, gaze gliding over to his taller shadow, looming dark and tattooed in the candlelight. The light made strange tricks, cast twisting shadows on the ground.

 

Thorin drew in a deep breath.

 

“And I too am at your service, Balin and Dwalin, sons of Fundin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course he would come to them first, the oldest and most loyal-hearted of his friends.  
> they have scrapped with him in the mud when they were but tiny dwarrows who knew naught of the pain of the world,  
> balin fundinson had learnt court politics and explained allies and enemies to him patiently,  
> dwalin fundinson had learnt the art of war and cut down enemies with astounding impatience,  
> they protected and loved him and he returns their love with all of his heart,  
> and there are days - painful days! - when he thinks they know him better than sweet frerin,  
> golden-haired, blazing bright frerin who fell too fast and too ugly when battle was met at the gates of azanulbizar.


	2. Fili&Kili

Balin did right by telling him to rest, Thorin decided the next day, when he was meeting swords with Fili in the middle of a dusty courtyard.

 

He was not as young as he once was, and Fili had the crazed energy of youth on his side – _and_ , Thorin thought wryly, _his younger brother standing by the sidelines to impress_.

 

But – and here his sword swung down, trapping the younger’s sword beneath it, Fili yelping in surprise when Thorin brought the sword up and about to rest at his throat – he had his own younger sister to impress. Dis was standing beside Kili, arms folded across her chest and mouth pressed tight, every line of her body radiating sheer cussed disapproval.

 

Fili is looking at him, blonde lashes shading bright eyes, and he is laughing. “When can I best you, Uncle?”

 

Thorin allowed the sword to fall loosely to his side, and said, “When your beard is longer. Maybe then.”

  
“My turn!” roared Kili before Fili could reply. “My turn! You’ve already had two goes, Fili!”

 

Dis snorted, and swept away into the forge.

 

Thorin smiled, and beckoned to his sister-son.

 

Children grew up all too fast. Young faces which once looked at you with such joy in their eyes grew shuttered and distant as time rolled past and seasons turned. Thorin counted his blessings that Fili and Kili had not such a change wrought upon them when they grew older - though privately, he did wonder if the two were so damnably immature that the passing of years made no impact in their behaviour.

 

No, he thought, when he was dragged into the house for lunch, noting the bookshelf of dwarf laws, old epics and songs in the corner of the room and scrolls on the art of gemwork scattered on the floor (“Sorry, Uncle,” said Kili hastily when Thorin entered, hurrying forward to sweep the ink and quill and scroll into his arms. “I was studying.” “Failing rather badly at it too,” muttered Fili behind him. The glare Kili shot past Thorin had scorched.), they had matured. They were learning, his sister-sons. They just didn’t show it.

 

Fili and Kili offered him food from their plates first, refusing to take one bite until after Thorin had eaten and pronounced his meal delicious, Dis’ not-presence was malevolently obvious – and finally they found no way to sidestep her glaring absence.

 

“I will go get your mother,” he announced, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Both of you, wait for us here. We have matters to discuss, and we will need your input later on.”

 

“Is it about the quest, Uncle?” blurted out Kili before Fili could elbow him in his ribs.

 

A pause.

 

Kili looked mortified, while Fili rolled his eyes.

 

“It is,” Thorin finally allowed. There was no point in hiding from his sister-sons, they could ferret out information from the most close-mouthed of dwarrows. “Wait here.”

 

Dis was at her forge, bringing her hammer down with uncommon ferocity on the glowing steel.

 

Thorin leant against the doorway, watching his sister work. Dis elected to ignore him until the third blow, when she could no longer stand the weight of her brother’s eyes.

 

“Isn’t there somewhere you should be, Thorin?” demanded Dis finally, looking up from her work. She wiped sweat fiercely from her brow with the dirty cloth slung around her neck, scratching at her shorn beard with a sigh when she was done. “Talking to Thekk, perhaps, about this quest you are going on about?”

 

“I will be looking for him tomorrow,” said Thorin. “After I speak to you, sister.”

 

“Well, don’t bother,” snapped Dis. She dropped down onto the lone stool located near the tool-table, and took a long swig from the flagon of watered-down ale she kept standing on a shelf above the table. “His axe is rusted.”

 

“Oh,” Thorin said quietly. “Well, then, sister. I suppose I will be talking to Vestri then -”

 

“He sold his axe to Men for a bag of gold. At least they were smart enough to not try to cheat a dwarf about _gold_.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Dis took a longer pull from the flagon, and slammed it down on the table. “Brother Thorin, I heard you did not mince words with the sons of Fundin. You spoke with Tharkun, didn’t you?”

 

“He found me -”

 

“Aye, he found you! He found you, and filled your head with _nonsense_.”

 

“That is -”

 

“No! No, no explanations. How many dwarrows have you raised other than the sons of Fundin, Thorin? How many steel promises have been given? How many dwarrows have you spoke to before you came to haunt my doors?” She pointed the mouth of the flagon accusingly at him. “You have _no_ shame!”

 

Thorin folded his arms across his chest, and tilted his head. “They are eighty-two years and seventy-seven years, sister-mine. And I have heard that there is no dwarf on this side of Ered Luin that can match Fili’s skill with a sword, and Kili’s with bow and arrow.”

  
“Ask orcs, trolls and goblins if they wish to join your little comparisons.”

 

Thorin’s face went red, and his fists clenched. His sister returned the flagon to its position on her table, and balled her fists in reply.

 

“Are you going to keep them here, forevermore in your house, sister? Under your skirts, underfoot in your forge? Sharpening your axes, and never forging any of their own?”

 

“You -”

 

“They try to learn!” he shouted. “They have scrolls on blacksmithing, on the mining of gems, on the runes of our fathers – yes! But how can this forge teach them how to turn gem and metal into work such as our father’s crown? Balin teaches them about our bloodlines, about who to trust and who to be wary of in our dead court – they swallow the knowledge, dead knowledge about a place that only exists in paper and song to them! Their cots were copper and wood instead of gold, sister! They have not stood behind the throne, they have not seen the Arkenstone set in its very centre! _They have never walked the halls of Erebor_!”

 

“You dare!”

 

“I dare, Mahal damn you!”

 

With a roar, his sister flung herself at him and they were on the ground, rolling and scuffling in the hot dusty earth as if they were still children in their teens and he heard Fili saying, “Amad, amad!” and Kili’s panicked yelping as the duo attempted to pull them apart.

 

 _Little bastards_ , thought Thorin as they scrabbled up from their undignified collapse and proceeded to attack each other with ever furious and increasingly sloppy punches, _I_ told _them to wait inside_.

 

When they finally separated, Thorin’s eye was purpling magnificently and Dis was spitting red into the earth.

 

“I do not wish to speak with you today.” Dis' voice was calm, the formality of the moment broken when she paused to dry heave onto the ground. “You will come back tomorrow, and we will discuss on how best we shall proceed.”

 

“Amad, do we -”

 

“No, my summer child, you don’t get a say in this. I am sorry.”

 

“Amad, I am seventy-seven! You were skirmishing orc hordes at my age!”

 

“With a well-trained troop supporting me, jewel of my eye.”

 

Balin could not offer anything but his sincerest condolences, ice and a suggestion that Skafid down Sapphire Way was still practicing as a mercenary.

 

Thorin stepped into Dis’ house at evening the next day.

 

Fili was boning a chicken while Kili was baking bread. Dis was mending a hole in a tunic that Thorin recognised as her husband’s. He sat himself opposite her, placing his gift of sweetmeat in the middle of the table.

 

“Where is your husband?”

 

“You’re asking about him now?” Dis stared stonily at him. “Heri is out travelling. Making gold to support our two stomachs on legs.”

 

“I don’t eat that –”

 

“Sst,” said Fili, bopping Kili on the head with the handle of his knife. Putting it down by the cutting board, he washed his hands before dragging his younger brother out of the dining room.

 

“They’re probably hiding around the corner with a funnel to their ears,” muttered Dis to Thorin as she watched their backs disappearing.

 

“True,” Thorin agreed, and they shared the smallest of laughs.

 

“Gold,” said Dis, and she took a sweetmeat, placing it carefully into her mouth. “I heard you offered the sons of Fundin that.”

 

“I have a contract,” said Thorin, and he passed it over to her. She looked it over swiftly, her brows knitting together as she swept past the part where words such as “incineration” and “funeral expenses” were mentioned.

 

“Neat. Balin made this for you, did he?”

 

“I dictated the terms. And he then gently pointed out all the parts I missed out.”

 

“I want to come along, brother.”

 

“No.”

 

“Explain.”

 

“If we should die, sister -”

 

“That’s a comfort, telling me there’s a very great chance you might get killed. Very convincing.”

 

“Would you rather I lied, sister?”

 

“No.”

 

“There.”

 

“I was being petulant.”

 

The silence was painfully drawn out, only broken when Dis leant back in her chair with a sigh.

 

“Mahal’s greying beard, Thorin …”

 

“I have no faith in Dain, Dis.” Thorin looked towards the doorway, and leant in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Balin has put the wheels in motion, he is sending word to trustworthy dwarrows even as we speak and I am riding to speak to them.”

 

A pause.

 

“I wager my shield that Dain will not heed my call.”

 

“It will be old dwarrows that remembered Erebor’s glory, or foolhardy young dwarrows who have yet to be blooded in battle who answer, I tell you.” Dis’ voice was flint, her grey-blue eyes steel. “Or even worse, thieves and mercenaries who will sell you out if you manage to kill that lizard sitting atop our gold.”

 

“Faith, Dis.” He rubbed at his eyes tiredly. Yet he could not refute his sister’s words, he had visited four households before he had came to Dis’ door again, and he had said his words and all had sent him on his ways with hollow promises. “Now, as I said … I have no faith in Dain. If the three of us fall - … Mahal forbid, may my tongue cut these untrue words to pieces even as I sound them into the world, if the three of us fall, you are the last true blood of Durin. The last.”

 

Dis’ face was hard and faraway, her gaze refusing to waver from Thorin’s gaze. He met her stare for stare.

 

“I will be responsible for Fili and Kili, Dis. I will be responsible for their fate.”

 

“I will enter the halls of our ancestors before them.”

 

Dis reached out, and gripped Thorin’s hand tightly.

 

“Elder brother, what are promises when blood is shed? Mahal makes our fate in his forge, and our words are nothing before his work.”

 

Her grip tightened.

 

“But I bind you. I hold you true. Steel and iron, stone and earth. Remember what you said tonight, brother.”

 

He left Dis sitting by the fireplace staring into the flickering flames, smoking a pipe full of Old Toby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how could dis not be angry?  
> she is sending her blood with her ungodly impatient and bitter brother to a quest  
> on the basis of a prophecy told years and years ago, spat out by a mad old dwarf oracle  
> who died on the mass exodus from erebor  
> these were two untried, untested youth who had only fought each other and wooden dummies in the sparring yard  
> and maybe a particularly fast rabbit up to now; but they are happy, joyful, and so eager to prove themselves to her  
> and their uncle, and she feels slightly sick,  
> at how fili's golden hair catches the light when he throws back his head in laughter,  
> and at how kili's smile crinkle at the corners,  
> when thorin breaks the news to them,  
> (oh frerin, oh frerin, oh frerin, you were the best of us, you smiled so easy and brought joy everywhere you went)  
> and she gives them two of three clasps she has squirrelled away in her coat when she left erebor  
> and the third she clasps in her hair, as a constant reminder.


	3. Oin

Thorin stayed in Ered Luin for thirteen days, and no more.

 

For it took thirteen days to traverse the length of the Blue Mountain, knocking on doors to speak to certain dwarrows who greeted him with wary respect, fed him, accepted whatever small meal he had made with his hands and then sent him on his way with firm refusals. Or worse, half-agreements that made Thorin’s head ache.

 

Some houses he did not enter, despite Balin’s quiet approval and Dwalin’s exasperated urging.

 

“We need every axe on this,” reminded Dwalin on the ninth day, when he was resting in their small house above the bookstore Balin tended, feet resting on a low stool and head tipped back as he smoked a pipe.

 

The sons of Fundin had stripped their living quarters clean, the brothers hiding away what precious treasures they have left in various corners (Thorin had noted Dwalin slipping a lovely gem-encrusted egg into a hollow book one night when he was over.) and in Balin’s case, cleaning and oiling old armour and weapons pulled out from an oaken chest.

 

“Yes. And some families need their axe more than we do.”

 

(Skafid had not looked overly pleased to see him. Viski, on the other hand, was more than happy to show off the paintings he had added to the grey walls of the house. He had set down scenes of bustling markets and cheery festivals, bordered with squares of bright gardens.

 

Thorin had looked askance at them. Viski noted his gaze, and replied, “We stayed at Bree for a little while, Hobbits craft with flowers, yer Majesty!”

 

Behind them, Skafid grumbled at how presumptuous Viski was – why would the King want to look at your silly drawings? “Slow-footed men with nicked swords are one thing,” Skafid had said later when Viski had nodded off, the dwarfchild curled up in a small ball on his father’s lap. “And a dragon is another, O King.”)

 

On the twelfth day, Balin casually said, “Dwalin, do you remember our cousin Oin?”

 

They were in Dis’ house; Dwalin having stumped in after an afternoon’s sparring with Fili and Kili. Dis had sought him out hours after Thorin’s offer, turned up at the brothers’ doorway with a sweet custard pie and informed them that Dwalin would hereby from that moment be resuming his position as weaponry tutor to the brothers.

 

She was not around at the moment, Fili and Kili having disappeared with her after she had hurried out of the house with small gems in her neatly braided moustache and beard (where did they get all that _energy_ to shout and run about after sparring?); Thorin suspected she was off visiting the houses he had went to earlier in the week.

 

Dwalin glanced up from the pie which he was currently devouring.

 

“I do. Word is, he’s a healer now. Dabbling in some surgery too, if’n I remember right.” He took a thoughtful bite. “I hear he’s doing well.”

 

Thorin pulled a black thread through his needle, holding it up to the light to see better. There was a rip in his under-tunic that was never going to mend on its own.

 

“Where was he last seen?”

 

And so it was that Thorin found himself in the backroom of a small inn, sitting on the torso of a particularly skinny human male, pinning the other’s shoulders down with his hands. It was quite an undignified scene, made worse by the cloth plugs he had up his nose. And still his face was turned away in a desperate attempt to keep from breathing in the smell emitting from the male’s mouth.

 

Oin worked fast, breaths coming shallow and quick. Within moments, two modified pliers (“Mahal,” muttered Thorin when Oin pulled them out from his enormous leather bag. He then made a mental note to resume rubbing tooth powder on his teeth on a daily basis.) were arranged on both sides of the man’s face, keeping his mouth open.  

 

“Sit on him tightly.” Oin’s gruff voice was calm as he bent over the other’s face, peering into the black hole of the man’s mouth. “I’ve given him a sleeping potion to drink, but the pain nearly always brings a person back to the surface. Especially children of Men.” He rapped the man’s forehead gently. “They are quite the delicate creatures. And they never _listen_ , the dolts.”

 

Thorin could only nod, and then he most certainly did not wince when Oin slipped on thin gloves and went to work with his dental key.

 

Within moments of the dental key at work, the man’s eyes had blown open and he was making the most _awful_ sounds.

 

“RRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!”

 

“I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO DRINK EVERYTHING, LAD!”

  
“IDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD _DDDDDDDDDDDD_!”

 

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, LAD! LOOK AT THIS! WHAT WERE YOU _EATING_?”

 

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE _CCCCCC_ KKKKKKKK!”

 

“GOOD LAD, BRAVE LAD, JUST ONE MORE TO GO! _NOW WOULD YOU REMEMBER TO WASH YOUR MOUTH DAILY_?”

 

The man’s eyeballs had rolled back and he had returned to his dead faint by the time Oin was done. The dwarf washed the man’s mouth out quickly with a small amount of balsam liqueur, which promptly sent the other shrieking awake for a moment before fainting yet again.

 

Thorin watched as Oin soaked small wads of cotton in a bottle of cloudy oil before shoving them into the empty holes in the man’s wet pink gums, and then winced, looking away until the other dwarf pronounced the extraction completed.

 

“Send him to me after two weeks,” Oin told the grumpy looking woman that escorted them out the back door. His iron staff thumped on the cobbles of the wet street, and he frowned up at her. “And for the love of Mahal, the application of tooth powders on a daily basis is a must. Or at least get him to chew mint. _You_ should start cleaning your teeth too, really.”

 

“Bah.”

 

And the door closed tightly on their faces.

 

Thorin frowned; Oin turned around from the door and began stumping down the twisting street.

 

“Come along, cousin King. What’re you waiting for?”

 

He followed, glancing behind at the door. Above them, the head of the woman turned as she followed them down the street, only snuffing the lamp out when the two dwarrows had merged with the dark.

 

As he walked, Oin spoke, the thump of his staff keeping pace with his words.

 

“I usually knock them out.” He smacked the staff hard against the cobble. “Boom! A little love-tap on the head when they wake up, which is plenty. Men never listen, while Hobbits listen too much and knock themselves out so well I have to dilute their sleeping potions for fear of putting them into an unending rest. It was good to have an assistant for once, cousin King.”

 

A sly look was slanted at Thorin.

 

“Especially assistance given from one so esteemed as you.”

 

Thorin grunted in reply, resting one hand on the hilt of his sword as he did. He noted the darker shadows standing too still in the alleyways they passed, the murmur of voices trying not to be heard and once, a hoarse cough.

 

He noted too, that Oin had switched exclusively to Khuzdul the moment they left the woman’s inn.

 

“I suppose that it is my turn to ask your assistance now.”

 

“What?”

  
“I suppose that it is my turn to ask for your help now.”

 

“…” Oin dug a pinky into his left ear, and flicked non-existent ear wax onto the ground. “YES?”

 

“I SUPPOSE THAT IT IS MY TURN TO ASK FOR YOUR HELP NOW.”

 

“Shut the fuck up!”

 

“I can hear you perfectly well, you needn’t shout that loud! Cousin King, this isn’t one of our towns, these are bad people, and they won’t hesitate to find trouble with two dwarrows -”

 

On and on went Oin, until they had left that particular alley and were stumping down yet another badly lit street. Thorin had lost count of how many turns they had taken. He had the vague feeling that the other was quite enjoying this.

 

He took advantage of the presence of a particularly bright lamp to drive a hand into his pack and bring out a neatly tied package. Oin stared at it. He heard something move behind him, and Thorin allowed his hand to drift down to his sword hilt.

 

“And that is …?”

 

“Something that may make our conversation easier,” and Thorin quickly tugged away the strings and passed the contents – a brass ear trumpet – over to Oin. The presence’s attention shifted away, and Thorin exhaled.

 

“Oh!”

 

Oin held the ear trumpet with one hand and looked oddly at it. “Well. Well I.” He stuck the narrow end into his ear, and cocked his head towards Thorin. “Very pleasant indeed, though my hearing is still not that terribly bad. Still, useful. Fili made this, didn’t he?”

 

“He has his mother’s blood,” agreed Thorin.

 

They walked for a moment in companionable silence, past a bakery and a several closed-up street stalls.

 

“You need my assistance?”

 

Thorin’s gaze shifted over to Oin, the dwarf kept his gaze straight ahead, iron staff thump-thump-thumping on the slick cobble while one hand kept his ear trumpet at the ready, cocked in Thorin’s direction.

 

“A healer is always welcome on such an undertaking.”

 

“And gold too, aye?”

 

Thorin said nothing; Oin sighed.

 

“Touchy about coin as always, cousin King.” The dwarf shrugged. Their pace had slowed down, they were nearing the outskirts of town. The untidy lines of ramshackle huts clustered together revealed themselves. Thorin could see the bulky shapes of ponies and farmyard animals moving around in pens, and the smaller, stouter shape of a dwarf standing guard. “You can tell Dwalin to take his egg off the market, I know how much he adores that little thing.”

 

Thorin stopped, turned, and looked down at Oin.

 

Oin’s smile was a thin, sharp line under the guttering flames of the last lamp.

 

“My staff and I would be more than happy to accompany your lot. My silver and gold, of which there is a reasonable amount, is slightly reluctant but ah, well.”

 

An even, more weary shrug.

 

“All investments carry a certain risk.” He gestured with his staff towards the town, which squatted sullenly behind them. “It’s late, cousin King. Get back to your inn before the lamps go out, as they are wont to do. Men don’t top up their oil enough to keep the lights burning through night.”

 

Thorin gave a short, sharp nod. Oin tucked his ear trumpet away in his coat, and reached out to clasp Thorin’s cold hands in his own.

 

“Best of luck to you in gathering blades and coin for this quest, cousin King.” A very long pause. “You do remember I have a brother, no? If you should need another warm body to hold a weapon, you may find he and his family a few days hence from this township. I hear they’re providing protection to a travelling group of minstrels at this moment.”

 

They hugged, briefly, and then Thorin made his own slow, careful way back into the darkness of the town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> healers are welcome wherever they go,  
> every breathing body needs a nimble hand and a clever mind,  
> that knew how to cover ugly wounds and create useful salves when  
> incidences happened.  
> and quests needed healers, quests needed people with stone-will that can soothe  
> crying voices in the night when wounds grew too deep.  
> an ugly job.  
> but oin thinks, it is better to serve fellow dwarrows than  
> continue toiling in the edges of men's towns  
> where chairs were too big and tables too high and glances too sharp.  
> oin is up for the task, his staff still lays hurt where he wills it  
> and he can hear quite well,  
> THANK YOU VERY MUCH.


End file.
